03/01/2007

Great Stuff is the devil's hand lotion

There is a product called
‘Great Stuff.’ It is an expanding foam that comes out of the can with the consistency
of very lathery shaving cream, and within an hour expands to roughly twice its
size. It is awesome for insulating purposes. It fills in cracks and joints like
nothing else and creates a seal that would otherwise be impossible to achieve.
But, MAN, do NOT get this stuff on your hands! It looks like I have some
advanced form of leprosy! And once it’s on your hands, it is on everything
else—ladders, hammers, pita chips, you name it. I sought to remove it, and the directions
on the can were: “Must be removed from skin by mechanical purposes or allowed
to wear off with time.” Mechanical purposes? Like a random-orbital disc sander?
As for time, trust me, I am looking forward to the day when my hands don’t have
a flaky orange covering on them. I feel like ‘The Thing’ from The Fantastic
Four. I figure late spring, early summer the latest. The best solution I came
up with was to rub my hands in a big pile of sawdust repeatedly until the
tackiness disappeared. Not a bad solution, but sawdust makes a poor topping for
pita chips.

I spent Monday and Tuesday doing a lot of
random stuff on the hillside. I finished insulating the east side, so now the
entire house is insulated, very exciting. I ‘Great Stuffed’ a lot of the cracks
between the insulation boards (see above). I shoveled the snow off of the north
side of the roof, in the process designing and building a home-made roof rake
out of scrap lumber. (My pride in the creation of this rake is completely out
of proportion with reality. A visitor stopped by to look at the house, and was
very impressed, but I replied with something to the effect of: “Yeah, yeah, the
house is great, but check out this roof rake I made!)All of this was in prep for Wednesday, which
was forecast to be beautiful, and Anne was taking time off from work so we
could once again attack the roof.Luckily the day turned out to be as
advertised—sunny, warm, no wind. Perfect roofing weather. We motored onward,
and came within a stone’s throw of finishing. Another couple of hours and we
would have nailed it, but I am not getting greedy. I am just happy that we are
actually getting it done, and that it is turning out relatively well. A bit
crooked, but good enough. There will be some creative trim work in our future
to cover the slightly undulating roof overhang, but I am sure we will figure
out something.